Tawk amongst yourselves

The May issue of Harper’s Magazine, which is not yet available on-line, has some thought-provoking articles that may boil your eggs. (Subscribe to this bad egg unbible: harpers.org.)

Lapham’s “Notebook: Time Travel” on the American ignorance of history, and what this state of childishness leads to. “The national shortage of adult minds suits the purposes of a government that defines its task as a form of child-rearing and guarantees the profits of the consumer markets selling promises of instant relief from the pain of thought, loneliness, doubt, experience, envy, and old age. A country so favored by fortune is one in which no childhood gets left behind.”

Greenberg’s “Manufacturing Depression: A journey into the economy of melancholy” raises many interesting questions about the pharmacological (i.e. profit-driven) approach to depression. This is particularly apropos to our potential next discussion.

Lewis-Kraus’s “A World in Three Aisles: Browsing the post-digital library” explores the Prelinger Library project in San Francisco. Fascinating.